My crazy life

So, as I'm entering the scores for the stuff I graded last night into the online grading spreadsheet, and gearing up to give my biostats exam, and making sure I have my cell phone just in case the plumber calls, my office phone rings.

For a moment, I'm hopeful it's the plumber saying, "It's underway, everything should be good."

But it was my secretary. "I have Urgent Care on the line" she said.

Oh man, I thought, which of my students got hurt and they're needing to call me about?

No...it turns out they had a small child who ate "some kind of berry" and the mom is worried and could they bring the plant over and have me identify it?

And then one of my students came in to tell me ANOTHER student was stuck with a broken down car and didn't have my number to call me about making up the exam.

I just stood there for a moment, psuedo-helpless...I was giving an exam in about 15 minutes, I was worried about other stuff...

So I told the secretary to send the people over, if they got there while I was giving the exam she could invigilate for me. I told the student to tell his buddy to find me when he got here (he's taking the exam now, in fact).

The woman came in with the plant. I couldn't identify it...one small heart-shaped leaves, a viny looking stem, and small, paired green berries. It didn't have milky sap (which is a good sign: stuff with milky sap tends to be poisonous). Didn't have a characteristic odor (again, some poisonous stuff does). I searched around but couldn't find it. I told the nurse that all I could tell her was that I doubted it was toxic (it certainly wasn't one of the Big Bad Poisonous Plants like dolls-eyes) but I couldn't be sure. I also told her I didn't know of any poisonous plants for which inducing vomiting was contraindicated - so if they wanted to be safe, maybe they could try that. (I hope that was okay advice).

It's possible it was some kind of Viburnum, now that I think of it. If any of them are toxic, they're not seriously so, so the child should be all right.

And at any rate...it was most likely not a toxic plant, as I said, it didn't look like any of the ones I know, and I know many of the bad ones. And if it is non toxic, and they give the kid a dose of Ipecac....well, maybe he'll associate "Eating random plant in the yard makes bad things happen to me" and won't do it in the future.

But, man. I feel like a baseball player trying to slide into home without being tagged by the ball.

I think of the quotation attributed to Mother Teresa (she may not have said it, though): "I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much."